Death, Interrupted.

(Disclaimer: I started writing only very recently, so, umm, yeah. These are something I like to call Postcard Stories, stories that can, in theory, fit on a postcard. It was inspired by a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, and his introduction to that same story. But, in what I’ve written, I don’t think I stick to it quite often, so it would, actually, constitute micro-fiction of some sort. Oh, well.)

Death, Interrupted.

The death of Jackson Emmet Cole was interrupted by the end of the world.

It was nine o’clock on a Saturday, and Jackson Emmett Cole was ready to kill himself. He had been feeling depressed for many years now, and he thought it only appropriate to rid himself of the pain. He had failed at everything, including his life’s ambition of being a physicist – he was deluded into believing that it was as glamorous and as sexy as the physicists on TV with books on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Jackson Emmett Cole was ready to kill himself. He had a gun in his hand, loaded with just one bullet. He walked to the veranda of the secluded lodge that he had booked for himself somewhere outside Carrbridge, and then put the gun to his head. He looked up at the stars one last time and noticed something strange.

“Look,” he said to no one in particular, so it fell dead in the cold wind.

“Look,” he urged again, and pointed to the sky, but only the rustling of the wind seemed to acknowledge him.

Without any fuss, the stars were going out. He knew that the world was ending.